Ardmore City Commissioners approve amendment to municipal code of ordinances

By Drew Butler / drew.butler@ardmoreite.com

Friday

Feb 22, 2019 at 10:00 AM

People will soon be able to see a list of all the fines and fees associated with the Ardmore Municipal Court. During Tuesday night’s meeting, the Ardmore Board of Commissioners voted to approve an amendment to the city’s code of ordinances creating such a list. The amendment also reduced the fines for some offenses.City Clerk Ken Campbell said that currently there is no one place to look up all of the fines. They were scattered throughout the ordinances in different sections.“Right now we don’t have a list in there,” Campbell said. “We go by the state, and there is no actual list. This way we get it all right there, and it’s very easy if you want to look at the code once.”Campbell also said that while most of the fines will remain the same, there will be a few that will be going down.“The most that we can charge in municipal courts is a fine of $500,” Campbell said. “You can have some costs on top of that but the fine itself can’t go above $500.”Adjusting to the new ceiling, the fines for possession of controlled dangerous substances and possession of paraphernalia will go from $800 to $500. The second offense for reckless driving will go from $750 to $500. Simple possession of marijuana or controlled substance will go from $800 to $500.Campbell said that the charge of driving while impaired will no longer be under the jurisdiction of the city.“Our city attorney (David Davis) said that we can’t do that in municipal court,” Campbell said. “It will now be with the county. Even if our guys got them, it would go out to the county.”Campbell said that because these are changes to a city ordinance, he has 15 days to get the amendment published. Once published, the new fines will go into effect, and he said that should be some time early next week.

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